More information is coming out regarding the failures of the Obama administration during the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. More members of the media are asking questions, but even so, one thing remains disgracefully consistent: Barack Obama isn’t talking.
CBS News reports that a key security task force was NOT convened when Americans were under attack in Libya.
CBS News has learned that during the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Mission in Benghazi, the Obama Administration did not convene its top interagency counterterrorism resource: the Counterterrorism Security Group, (CSG).
“The CSG is the one group that’s supposed to know what resources every agency has. They know of multiple options and have the ability to coordinate counterterrorism assets across all the agencies,” a high-ranking government official told CBS News. “They were not allowed to do their job. They were not called upon.”
Information shared with CBS News from top counterterrorism sources in the government and military reveal keen frustration over the U.S. response on Sept. 11, the night Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed in a coordinated attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya.
One counterterrorism official told CBS News that the FBI did receive a call from the office of Secretary of State requesting that agents be deployed. “But he and his colleagues agreed the agents ‘would not make any difference without security and other enablers to get them in the country and synch their efforts with military and diplomatic efforts to maximize their success.'”
Another senior counter terrorism official says a hostage rescue team was alternately asked to get ready and then stand down throughout the night, as officials seemed unable to make up their minds.
A third potential responder from a counter-terror force stationed in Europe says components of AFICOM — the military’s Africa Command based in Stuttgart, Germany — were working on course of action during the assault. But no plan was put to use.
Fox News has learned that the diplomats in Benghazi held an “emergency meeting” only weeks before the attack, “because Al Qaeda had training camps in Benghazi and the consulate could not defend against a ‘coordinated attack.'”
This is unreal. The diplomats knew al Qaeda was growing. They felt the danger. They ask for more help. This is BEFORE the actual attack. Of course, we then have the tragic failure of leadership during the hours and hours that Americans were under siege in Benghazi when NOTHING was done to help them.
And the story gets even worse. As reported by The Daily Caller, in a recent interview, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said that “major news networks” could be holding e-mails which prove “the White House canceled plans to assist the besieged U.S. consulate in Benghazi.” If this is the case, then nothing short of the impeachment of the president is warranted.
“There is a rumor — I want to be clear, it’s a rumor — that at least two networks have emails from the National Security Adviser’s office telling a counterterrorism group to stand down,” Gingrich said. “But they were a group in real-time trying to mobilize marines and C-130s and the fighter aircraft, and they were told explicitly by the White House stand down and do nothing. This is not a terrorist action. If that is true, and I’ve been told this by a fairly reliable U.S. senator, if that is true and comes out, I think it raises enormous questions about the president’s role, and Tom Donilon, the National Security Adviser’s role, the Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, who has taken it on his own shoulders, that he said don’t go. And that is, I think, very dubious, given that the president said he had instructions they are supposed to do everything they could to secure American personnel.”
Gingrich mentions Defense Secretary Leon Panetta as kind of taking the fall on this one, but as CBS News has learned, during the ongoing Benghazi attack, Barack Obama held a meeting with Panetta and Vice President Joe Biden.
President Barack Obama met with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Vice President Joe Biden at the White House on Sept. 11, 2012 at 5:00 PM–just 55 minutes after the State Department notified the White House and the Pentagon that the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi was under attack.
The meeting between Obama, Panetta and Biden had been scheduled before the attack took place, and the Department of Defense is not commenting now on whether the three men were aware when they met that day of the ongoing attack or whether Obama used that meeting to discuss with his defense secretary what should be done to defend the U.S. personnel who at that very moment were fighting for their lives in Benghazi.
So… the three were all together for a schedule meeting, and as CBS News notes in their story, the White House was notified via e-mail by the State Department that the Americans were under attack.
Guess what? I don’t care what Leon Panetta or Hillary Clinton says… if Barack Obama is in the room, and a terrorist attack is underway, Barack Obama is going to be calling the shots. Does anyone think Leon Panetta, while standing next to the president of the United States, would give an order to do nothing?
So far, Barack Obama isn’t talking, and this is just mind-blowing. Although the Romney campaign is steering clear of the issue, they shouldn’t. I’m sure there are smart people involved in his campaign that know how to wordsmith properly. It’s NOT just about the economy. This deals with the most important function of the president of the United States. Barack Obama has failed as commander-in-chief… promoting the attacks as the result of a spontaneous uprising from an anti-Muslim video. How pathetic. It’s time for both the media and the Romney campaign to step up.
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